First Impressions

First Impressions

Imagine a recent graduate from a university who wants to start a career at a company. First, college graduates must begin by filling out any applications and then will begin the process of job interviews at several companies. The intention of these interviews is to convince the employer they are the best employee. The applicant needs to complete an hour-long interview with the recruiter in which they need to show their abilities concerning the job. But this method of assessing a person's intelligence and personality is not really useful because it is not possible to weigh person's qualities in such a short period of time. Furthermore, applicants can prepare themselves for a job interview in ways that manipulates the outcome. Although, there is one type of interview, named structured interview, in which evaluating a person’s personality and intelligence is most likely possible.

_Nobody is able to trust in her or his first impressions because those impressions are only produced by thoughts, which come up after having seen a person for the first time for just a few seconds. Nothing about this first impression can be confirmed, as there is no background knowledge. So it is impossible to tell, whether a person will live up to this first impression or will confirm them with her or his behaviour. The reason why the first impression influences us that much dates back more than two million years and is explained by
evolutionary biology. As scientists acknowledge, the modern civilisation adopted many primary instincts from our primitive ancestors. The Stone Age people needed their first impression to evaluate between friend and enemy, so this superficial impression could decide between life and death. Perhaps this is the reason, why we still assign that much importance to our first impression. Successful candidates share the ability to present themselves positively, to establish solidarity and rapport with their interlocutor, to show their strengths (“Winning an...

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